Salem, Virginia

Salem sits on flat ground with high country close on both sides. The Roanoke River comes through town and runs east from there, and the ridges stand up in plain sight of most of the streets. That shape decides a lot. A yard on the low flats holds soft, deep soil, a yard up on the shoulder of a hill holds thin ground with rock under it, and the same kind of tree grows into two different trees depending on which one it started in.

A town canopy does not come up one tree at a time. Streets get laid out and planted in stretches, so a block in Salem often carries trees of about the same age and the same handful of kinds. That is worth knowing, because trees planted together also reach the end of their run together. When one big tree on a street starts dropping limbs in still weather, the ones on either side of it are usually not far behind.

An older Salem yard holds some mix of white oak, sugar maple and black walnut, with hickory or tulip poplar where a piece of the original woods was left standing. The ornamental trees planted along driveways are a different story. Bradford pear is the plainest example, since it grows several trunks out of one weak spot low on the tree and pulls itself apart in ice or a hard wind, often while it still looks healthy.

The trees along the streets themselves have a harder time than the ones out in the yards. A tree set between a sidewalk and a curb gets a narrow box of soil to live on, and some of its roots go every time that concrete gets repaired. Those trees hold on for years and then go downhill quickly. Tree care in Salem often comes down to getting a look at one of them while it still looks fine.